SARISTU · Smart Intelligent Aircraft Structures

The project proposal concerns the challenges posed by the physical integration of smart intelligentstructural concepts. It addresses aircraft weight and operational cost reductions as well as animprovement in the flight profile specific aerodynamic performance.This concerns material concepts enabling a conformal, controlled distortion of aerodynamicallyimportant surfaces, material concepts enabling an active or passive status assessment of specificairframe areas with respect to shape and potential damages and material concepts enablingfurther functionalities which to date have been unrealizable.Past research has shown the economic feasibility and system maturity of aerodynamic morphing.However, few projects concerned themselves with the challenges arising from the structuralintegration on commercial aircraft. In particular the skin material and its bonding to the substructureis challenging. It is the aim of this project proposal to demonstrate the structuralrealizability of individual morphing concepts concerning the leading edge, the trailing edge and thewinglet on a full-size external wing by aerodynamic and structural testing.Operational requirements on morphing surfaces necessitate the implementation of an independent,integrated shape sensing system to ensure not only an optimal control of the aerodynamic surfacebut also failure tolerance and robustness. Developments made for structural health monitoring willbe adapted to this task. Similar systems optimized for rapid in-service damage assessment haveprogressed to a maturity which allows their inclusion in the next generation of aircraft. However,the time consuming application of these sensor systems has to be further improved by integrationat the component manufacturing level. The additional benefit of a utilization of these adaptedsystems for part manufacture process and quality control shall be assessed in SARISTU.Addressing the Nanotechnology aspect of the call, benefits regarding significant damage toleranceand electrical conductivity improvements shall be realized at sub-assembly level.